The lawsuit between the famed hacker Geohot and Sony has been an uphill battle from the start. When everyone thought that this was a going to be a grueling elongated dispute between the hacker against the big bad corporation, it ends swiftly with an out of court agreement.

The main reason Sony went after Geohot was that he enabled PS3 users to jailbreak the system just as you would with an iPhone.

Joint Statement

Sony Computer Entertainment America (“SCEA”) and George Hotz (“Hotz”) today announced the settlement of the lawsuit filed by SCEA against Hotz in federal court in San Francisco, California. The parties reached an agreement in principle on March 31, 2011. As part of the settlement, Hotz consented to a permanent injunction.

Both parties expressed satisfaction that litigation had been quickly resolved. “Sony is glad to put this litigation behind us,” said Riley Russell, General Counsel for SCEA. “Our motivation for bringing this litigation was to protect our intellectual property and our consumers. We believe this settlement and the permanent injunction achieve this goal.”

“It was never my intention to cause any users trouble or to make piracy easier,” said Hotz, “I’m happy to have the litigation behind me.” Hotz was not involved in the recent attacks on Sony’s internet services and websites.

In the action, SCEA accused Hotz of violating federal law by posting online information about the security system in the PlayStation 3 videogame console andsoftware that SCEA claimed could be used to circumvent the security system in theconsole and allow the playing of pirated videogames. Hotz denies any wrongdoing on his part. Hotz’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction was still pending before the federal court in San Francisco but a preliminary injunction was issued requiring Hotz to take down the postings challenged by SCEA.

“We want our consumers to be able to enjoy our devices and products in a safe and fun environment and we want to protect the hard work of the talented engineers, artists, musicians and game designers who make PlayStation gamesand support the PlayStation Network,” added Russell. “We appreciate Mr. Hotz’s willingness to address the legal issues involved in this case and work with us to quickly bring this matter to an early resolution.

It seems that the PS3 Jailbreak community has lost they’ re poster boy for hacking the PS3. Will this be the last you see of the famed Geohot? Or will someone else take on the reigns of jailbreaking the PS3? We will soon find out.

Planet-iPhones.com is NOT affiliated with or representing Apple. iPhone, the "Apple" logo and any other product names, service names
or logos of iPhone used, quoted and/or referenced herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of Apple.